How we create the association

It’s no surprise that the system doesn’t want to fund us to organise and then come and tell them what they’re doing wrong.

If we want a strong, equitable, independent association for all mental health consumers, then we just have to do it ourselves.

There is a lot of work to do. Luckily, many consumers have worked over many years to get this project going (read more here) – and we are indebted to their hard work and vision. Let’s not waste it.

This page outlines the work that we think needs to be done so we can actually create an official, national consumer association. Tell us what you think in the forums: this space, and eventually the association, belongs to all of us.

The Plan

All of us need to promote this website to every consumer we know, and encourage ALL consumers to register as members. More people registered means:

More diverse perspectives & better decisions

More influence­ (we will be able to say things like “[INSERT NUMBER HERE] consumers want…’

More people to chip in and help with ideas, volunteering or money – depending on what each person is able and willing to give­

We’ll start to make a difference for consumers who are feeling isolated and cut off – because right here, on every part of this website, will be a community of welcome for every single Australian consumer

How you can help promote us right now

So, this means that we all need to share and share and share links to this page. In every email, facebook group, twitter post and website that we possibly can.

Use these icons to promote us.

Download and use these icons, along with a link to us (http://consumersaustralia.org/), to promote the website. Feel free to use these images wherever you like. If you have ideas for more images or media that we can use, let us know in the volunteering and contributions forum.

Even if all of us volunteer our time, it will cost money to run a national association.

This website alone has already cost several hundred dollars to build. We’ll need several thousand dollars for insurance and legal fees and other start-up costs. Eventually, we’ll want to pay for consumer staff to work in this new organisation. We’ll start to need office space, and furniture and equipment.

Do we want to only be funded by consumer members, or what about other types of paying members (eg, associate, non-voting allies), or consumer organisations?

How independent do we want to be? Who will we accept donations or grants from? Who will we rule out (eg, we’re guessing that pharmaceutical companies would be a ‘no go zone’). Will we be transparent about who we take money from? How?

What about crowd funding? Or merchandising? Or making money from training, conferences or even consumer association accredited training (for a fee)?

How will we manage money until we are officially established? Who will do this? And should we start trying to raise it now?

We assume that as consumers we will want a democratic process. This would mean time for discussion and debate, followed by a vote. Or do we want to aim to reach consensus rather than go with a majority decision? Or do we want to nominate and vote for consumer representatives to make decisions on behalf of the larger group? Is it acceptable to vote on decisions on this website?

Creating our association will be a lot of work. We already know that no-one else will do it for us – nor should they. This website has been built with consumer volunteer time. For now, everything else will need to be done with volunteer time as well.

We will need people to volunteer for loads of things:

To join online committees to review forums and propose decisions, or to get stuff done in the real (not online) world

To moderate forums (we will need this ASAP)

To write content for different parts of this site (we already need this)

To promote the site and association with consumers – getting out to services everywhere with flyers

To gather info from across Australia about consumer perspectives, initiatives, campaigns, local knowledge and info

There are forums on this site where we can discuss each of this areas, and voting polls for when we’re ready to make a decision together.

For now, if you can volunteer or contribute anything to help, please let us know in the Volunteering Forum.

Making decisions

The initial proposal is that, until we find a better way to make decisions, that the general principle on this site will be to raise issues in forums on this site so everyone has a chance to discuss them. Then we will create a poll in this part of the site so everyone can vote.

Our first poll should probably be to check that this process is OK with people, and to decide on what sort of democratic process we agree with for the votes.

By mid-November some sample polls will be loaded on this page for us to try out and discuss.

We should also look at consensus decision making software like Loomio. If you have some ideas please share them in the Decision Making Forum.

Topics: most recent

Vote in the current polls for members

March 2016: We've launched a survey for all members of Consumers Australia. We want to start doing more, but first, we need to know how you want to be involved, and we want your help to make a big decision abut our purpose.